FIDM Museum Blog

Sonia Rykiel tunic and pants, 1970

The late 1960s controversy over mini, midi and maxi skirt lengths continued into the early 1970s. Though some designers began experimenting with longer skirts, women declared their loyalty to the mini. In 1970, a young Philadelphia woman spoke for many when she said, "I'll keep wearing the mini even if it goes out of style."¹ This loyalty to the mini caused confusion among retailers, who usually stocked their stores with versions of the latest runway offerings. As there was no consensus about which skirt length would be most fashionable, retailers didn't know what to offer their customers.

Perhaps in response to the hemline controversy, women began turning to pants as a fashionable alternative to skirts and dresses. Though pants had been considered appropriate for casual activities since the 1950s, in the early 1970s they began to move into the arenas of formal and professional dress. High-end restaurants, many of which had prohibited the entry of any woman wearing pants, relaxed their dress codes. Pants also began appearing occasionally in the workplace.

Tunic and pants
1970
Tunic: Sonia Rykiel
Pants: Unknown designer
Gift of Anonymous Donor
Tunic: 2003.40.11B
Pants: 2003.40.21

Alexander McQueen, you will be missed.

All of us at the FIDM Museum were saddened and shocked to learn of Alexander McQueen's death. Such a tremendous loss of creative talent is difficult to comprehend. McQueen's aesthetic was provocative and never shy of pushing limits. Individual garments (recent examples include "armadillo" shoes and bone patterned suits) were provocative, as were the narratives that inspired each collection. In addition to his creative abilities, McQueen was a master of his craft, with many calling him the finest woman's tailor of his generation. For anyone who questions the impact of a provocative designer on everyday dress, take a look at the jeans you're probably wearing right now. If they're low-waisted, you have Alexander McQueen to thank, as he first introduced the low-cut "bumster" trouser in the mid-nineties.

Refashion

As a concept, fashion is based on the appeal of the new. Every season, silhouettes, colors and shapes are re-combined in an effort to create garments of such great appeal that you will replace (or at least supplement) your existing wardrobe. With the appearance of inexpensive, mass-market retailers that stock their racks with "fast fashions", it has become even easier to fill your closet with garments that resemble the latest runway offerings. Though the savvy shopper is often encouraged to pursue quality over quantity, it is far too easy for many shoppers to believe that new clothes = a new me.

In recent years, consumers and creators of fashion have begun to look at the issue of fashion consumption with a more critical eye. Some creators and producers of fashion struggle with what sustainability and eco-fashion can mean on a practical level through altering production methods or utilizing eco-friendly textiles. Many consumers have taken the issue into their own hands by purchasing only second-hand garments or sewing their own clothes. Others engage in wardrobe refashioning or remixing, a concept which promotes rethinking your closet by recombining or altering those garments you already own.

Refashioning or altering garments to update their style or function is not a new concept. Until the mid-to-late 20th century, most garments were costly enough that they were worn until no longer functional, passed on to someone else or refashioned. In the FIDM Museum collection, we have several examples of garments that have been reimagined to suit the changing needs of the wearer.

Day dress
1853-54
Gift of the Helen Larson Estate
S2001.31.18A-C

Tailored suit

In the 20th century, the tailored suit became a standard uniform for professional working women. Consisting of a jacket and skirt in matched or closely coordinated fabric, it developed in the late 19th century as an evolution of specialized garments worn for outdoor activities such as horseback riding, croquet and bicycling. Like its sporting predecessors, the tailored suit had a function: it served as a professional uniform for the newly emerging class of women who worked outside the home as educators, social workers and clerical employees. Tailored suits were also worn for leisure activities like travel or an afternoon promenade. With styling borrowed from menswear, most tailored suits featured solid colors and a minimum of decorative trim.

Two-piece suit
1913-1914
Gift of the Manlove Family
2006.870.33AB

High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture video!

For those of you who asked for more video after watching The Couture Process, you are in luck today! The FIDM Video Gallery, where you will find various FIDM related videos, currently features a short segment titled "Opening Party: Betsy Bloomingdale Exhibition." The video features footage of the exhibition opening along with a short section of the documentary featured in High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture.

Copies of the catalog are still available, so if you'd like a copy, visit the FIDM Museum Shop. The catalog features beautiful images, including this image of a 1962 James Galanos day suit.

Day Suit
James Galanos for Amelia Gray
1962
77.116.10A-D
Button detail 77.116.10A-D

Coco Chanel

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971) distinguished her design aesthetic through a strict insistence on comfortable, lightweight garments and a pared-down silhouette. Chanel's interest in simplicity is seen in her earliest millinery designs from the 1910s, which relied on a single, dramatic embellishment for decoration rather than the "assemblage of materials" then in vogue.¹ This interest in "less is more" also demonstrated itself in her earliest garment designs, ready-made suits and dresses often made from inexpensive wool jersey. These garments, almost the exact opposite of popular feminine fashions, launched Chanel's career. Throughout her career, Chanel adhered to the basic principle of crafting soft, lightweight fabrics into functional (yet luxurious) garments.

Though Chanel produced a variety of garment types throughout her career, one that reappeared over and over was the suit. Borrowing from menswear, Chanel created a feminine suit which offered ease of movement and capitalized on the implication of power inherent in the masculine suit. The basic, stripped down silhouette remained consistent, but the textiles changed with the times. It became a classic and functions today as shorthand for the designer herself.

Two-piece suit
Chanel
Spring 1964
Transfer from the Museum at FIT
S2004.291.24AB

Moschino Cheap and Chic

By the time Franco Moschino (1950-1994) introduced his "Cheap and Chic" line in 1988, he had already earned a reputation as the irreverent "court jester" of the fashion world. From the time he debuted his first "Couture!" collection in 1983, Moschino treated fashion as an absurdist playground. Models were sent down the runway with candy-box tops instead of hats, wearing dresses patterned with faux tire tracks or dressed in giant Moschino shopping bags instead of garments. Tailored suits featured quirky details such as a collar made of teddy bears or pockets resembling miniature purses. "Stop the Fashion System" was a favorite catch-phrase, used in Moschino ad campaigns and as a logo on garments. Moschino considered being a fashion designer "a superficial, stupid job," stating that he was more interested in the "social-psychological aspect" of fashion.¹

Cheap and Chic sweater
Franco Moschino
1992-1994
FIDM Museum Purchase
2005.5.26

Alexander McQueen

Deliverance, Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2004 fashion show was the hit of the season. Based on the 1969 film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (starring Jane Fonda), Deliverance subverted the typical fashion show narrative by reversing the order of presentation; evening gowns kicked off the extravaganza while faux-homespun daywear and a tarnished evening gown concluded the show. This narrative mirrored the film, which documents a Depression-era dance marathon. In order to earn a cash prize the hopeful participants must dance for days with only brief breaks for food and short naps. Lack of sleep and food, paired with non-stop dancing, drives the dancers to the point of emotional and physical collapse and ends in tragedy. You can watch the trailer here.

Little Lord Fauntleroy

What the Earl saw was a graceful childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good fellowship.   Frances Hodgson Burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886

The 1886 children's story Little Lord Fauntleroy relates the tale of Cedric Errol, an American boy who inherits a British peerage and becomes Lord Fauntleroy. For much of the story, the boy wears a 17th century style costume of black velvet jacket and breeches, wide lace collar and cuffs with a trailing sash of black silk tied around his waist. Cedric's hair is styled in long, spiral curls, which were called lovelocks. Illustrations by Reginald Birch show the boy in a variety of situations, almost always wearing his velvet suit. This invented look had little relation to anything currently in style for young boys and was similar to the way that the author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, dressed her two sons. Burnett's clothing choices for her sons were likely influenced by her interest in the Aesthetic movement and by her long-term friendship with Oscar Wilde. Wilde's fashion choices were surely an inspiration for Burnett, especially the velvet jacket and breeches worn during his American lecture tour in 1882.

Though the book was extremely popular, it was after the 1888 stage adaption that the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" look became widely popular for young boys. By 1893, variations of Little Lord Fauntleroy's velvet jacket and breeches were featured in publications such as Harper's Bazaar and Peterson's Magazine. Surely little boys weren't flipping through Harper's Bazaar for fashion inspiration, so it is perhaps more accurate to say that the look was popular with parents who could impose their sartorial will on their sons. Written accounts suggest that "many a boy in the [eighteen]nineties was seared by this weird pestilence. Its contagiousness was heightened by maternal pride. Matrons dressed up their unwilling sons in the way of Master Cedric, and fondly exhibited them..."¹

 

The Little Lord Fauntleroy style remained popular into the first decade of the twentieth century and was well-documented by photographers. Photographic evidence is particularly informative, because it allows us to see how the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit was worn and interpreted by real people. This provides a dimension of knowledge beyond that obtained by looking only at an extant garment. Featured below are two versions of the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit from the FIDM Museum. The cabinet card is from our growing collection of historic photos and the actual suit was featured in our 2008 exhibition "Aesthetes, Bohemians & Craftsmen: Artistic Dress, 1880s-1920s."

Cabinet card, gelatin silver print
c.1900
Gift of Steven Porterfield
2009.897.108

Boy's suit
1890-1900
Gift of Toni Hohberg
84.359.2AB

1 Quoted in Wilson, Anna."Little Lord Fauntleroy: The Darling of Mothers and the Abomination of a Generation" American Literary History 8 (1996): 232-258.